Tag Archives: martha raddatz

Does the average voter in America really care who moderates the up coming three or possibly four, Presidential debates? My totally unscientific and skewed poll results, with a margin-of-error of 50%, show no. However, many would love to ask the candidates a few non-screened questions of our own. Evidently the Commission on Presidential Debates (yes, such an important commission exists) has decided that Jim Lehrer, Bob Schieffer, Candy Crowley and Martha Raddatz will ask those all important pre-screened questions so that the debates don’t turn into a game of “stump the candidate.” That fact alone gets a big yawn from me. It means Romey will not get any questions about putting his dog on the top of his car while traveling and Obama will most likely not get questioned about his origins, college transcripts or if he really quit smoking.

At the root of the great debate about the debate, is the fact that the four chosen moderators are not diverse enough. Yes, there are men and women in the mix but no African-American or Latino moderators were chosen. This so-called “snub” has caused unrest among the ranks of the National Association of Black Journalists, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and of course Univision (the largest Spanish-language network). It doesn’t matter evidently, that Black Journalist Gwen Ifill from PBS has moderated these debates for the last eight years, she is said to be “shocked” and Livid” that she was not chosen. I guess Gwen thinks it is some unalienable right because she is a minority. This is getting crazy that an individual or organization can’t simply pick who they think will be the best person for the job because diversity now has to trump everything. Yes, our country is a melting pot which is a good thing but a debate stage can only hold so many people so the “snubbed” will just have to live with it. The Country is in an economic crisis and the big question should be what are these candidates going to do about jobs, the economy, healthcare and taxes? The crucial problems affecting our diverse nation.

Among the “snubbed” were also NBC, Fox News and MSNBC. The Romney camp evidently said they would take their toys and go home if anyone from MSNBC was chosen. So, there is a lot of childishness at work here putting together these top-level, don’t-ask-me-anything-I-don’t-want-to-answer debates. So is the answer to get a person from every ethnic group in America? Will that quell the whiners? Of course it won’t. They would then be complaining about who got the best question to ask. When in reality, the only good questions will be the ones that never get asked.